


A Haunting Encounter

by NoGreenEggs



Category: Psych
Genre: Brief Mention of Suicide, Eventual Romance, Ghosts, M/M, Miscellaneous psychic abilities, Original Character(s), Supernatural Elements, brief mention of drug use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-09-01 07:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8614813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoGreenEggs/pseuds/NoGreenEggs
Summary: Being a psychic, ghosts are known to come with the territory. They've just never been real until now.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Suffer through chapter one and the writing gets better I swear

****1987** **

Shawn Spencer sighed. He and his best friend, Gus, had been hoodwinked once again by his father into doing a chore. This time, with the promise of ice cream, Henry Spencer had managed to talk Shawn and Gus into carrying two large flower pots through an empty graveyard to his grandparents' graves. Even the sky seemed put out by Henry's betrayal as it darkened with every passing second.

"I don't get it," Shawn panted. The weight of the flower pot was bogging the ten year old down, and Gus seemed to be doing even worse. Henry called it character building. "You said yourself that you didn't even know your grandparents. So why are we bothering to waste our afternoon, doing this thing that nobody even cares about?"

Henry's sigh was long-suffering. He glanced back to where his son and friend were lagging behind him and sighed again for good measure. "It's a sign of respect, Shawn. Like I already told you, your grandfather goes out on the first Sunday of every month and brings some flowers to his parents' graves. But because of that thing with his back, he couldn’t make it up this month and he felt bad. So we're doing it for him.” At the skeptical look his son gave him, Henry sighed once more. ”It's just a nice thing to do, Shawn."

"I don't like it here," Gus shivered, "It gives me the willies."

Shawn rolled his eyes, smirking at his fainthearted friend. "What's the matter, Gus? Afraid we'll run into a ghost?"

"Stop it, Shawn."

"Ooo, watch out, Slimer's going to slime you."

"I said stop it."

Henry turned his eyes heavenwards. "Give it a rest, Shawn. Why don't you do something useful? Do you think you can tell me how to get to your great-grandparents' graves from here?"

Shawn sighed, "I think so."

The rest of the trip was spent in silence with Gus glaring haughtily at his friend who was too busy trying to recall the map of the cemetery to notice. He had only seen it for a single moment but he still managed to lead the others to their destination without any troubles. It was after they had dropped off the flowers and were making their way back to Henry's waiting truck that something out of the ordinary caught Shawn's attention. "Whoa, who's that guy?"

Out almost to the end of the cemetery, a man in a suit that looked at least a hundred years out of fashion and a large brim hat stood with his back to the trio.

Gus stopped beside Shawn and squinted in the same direction as his friend. "What guy?"

Shawn frowned at his friend before extending his hand and pointing at the stranger. "That guy, right there. In the tux."

"There's nobody there, Shawn." His friend huffed.

Henry turned and looked out into the field of graves. Sure enough, they were the only ones in the graveyard. Henry silently kicked himself for teaching his son to lie so well then pinned his son with a stern look"Shawn, will you knock it off? You're scaring, Gus." Henry raised his hand, silencing his son before he had a chance to start his protests. "You're mother is expecting us at home. No more jokes and let's go."

Shawn stared at the retreating backs of his companions in utter confusion. "But he's wearing a __top hat__!" Shawn looked back at the man in the strange garb. He must have heard Shawn shouting,  as he had turned to face them. The stranger stared at the young boy, his skin so pale it seemed almost translucent. When Shawn met the stranger’s eyes, he gasped. Shawn’s mind was suddenly filled with a sad acceptance that the boy couldn't understand but seemed to radiate from the man by the grave.

"Shawn!" Henry's voice snapped Shawn back into reality. He looked to where his father and Gus were waiting for him by the car. How had they gotten there so fast?

When Shawn glanced back again to the graves, the man was gone.

****

****Present Day (Circa 2008)** **

Burton 'Gus' Guster had been having a good day. He had finished his route on time, gotten a couple new leads for doctors looking to change up their carriers and even managed to work in enough time to flirt with his top client's cute new assistant. Now all he needed to do was check in at his second job and then he was free to go home for a well deserved hot shower and early bed time.

Gus used his spare key to let himself into the office. The main lights were off but there was still enough light shining through the windows that Gus knew his partner and long time friend must still be there. Probably in the middle of a Space Invaders marathon or some other unproductive activity. Like he even stood a chance at beating Gus's high score.

"Shawn if you're going to play video games all afternoon at least turn- Oh no." Unfortunately for Gus, his friend was not playing any video games at all, but it was still clear what he had spent his day doing. Every flat surface in the office had been covered with candles and the main room had been emptied of all its furniture except a large circular table.

Shawn Spencer stood in front of the table, around which sat a group of strangers all of who were holding hands. In the middle of the table, surrounded by more candles was a picture of a young woman with curly black hair, and dark eyes that that seemed to sparkle through the picture.

Shawn raised his hands, he was dressed in a silk blue bathrobe with a Hawaiian design that he had clearly stolen from his father. It and his brown hair wafted lightly in the breeze of a carefully concealed fan, completing the preternatural scene. "Gus, please," Shawn exclaimed, he over-pronounced all of his words, knowing it would add to the effect with the added bonus of annoying his friend, "The spirits are here with us," He continued, "They need complete silence."

"Shawn!"

Shawn and several of the people circled around the table shushed Gus, who glared back at all of them before he turned on his heel and moved into the kitchen where his desk had been haphazardly pushed into. Gus had learned it was better to just let Shawn work through his "trances" than try to stop him. Shawn after all was a psychic, or so he told the police to keep from going to jail. In truth Shawn had been raised to be perceptive of everything around him, and his seances were just one of his many scams he ran to keep up the illusion of his mystic abilities.

Shawn opened his eyes and grinned at his friend who glared back disapprovingly. Shutting his eyes again, Shawn made a show of being hit with a sudden psychic vision. "I'm seeing... a boat! Was Ayana on a boat recently?"

A woman on the left of Shawn began to nod her head. "Yes, she was planning a boating trip with her friends. Oh no. __Oh no__ , she's lost at sea. Oh my poor baby!"

Shawn shook his head and hushed the girl's, Ayana's, mother, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. "No I'm sensing the trip was a success, but there's something else. It's... still unclear."

"Mom?"

"Please." Shawn gasped. "I need total silence for this to work."

There was a beat, and then, "No one said anything." Ayana's sister said from her spot on the right of Shawn.

"Mom, what... what's happening?"

"Oh really." Shawn tsked in annoyance. He instantly dropped his act and opened his eyes. "If no one’s talking then who's the chatty Kath-" His words froze in his throat and his eyes grew wide. Standing across from Shawn, shaking from head to foot and very much see through, was Ayana Lewis, the girl Shawn had been hired to find. Everyone else in the room had their eyes on Shawn, who's voice continued to fail him.

"What is it?" Ayana's mother asked, "What do you see?"

Ayana tore her eyes off of her mother to meet Shawn's eyes. The moment their eyes connected, Shawn felt himself shiver and all around the candles began to flicker.

Ayana stared at Shawn, shaking harder than before. "Help me." She whispered. Before Shawn could react, she had faded from the room.  

The second she was completely gone, Shawn gasped and stumbled backwards. His back hit a wall and he slid down to the ground, still gasping. Shawn could faintly hear Gus calling his name and was mildly aware that his clients were demanding answers while they crowded around him. After a moment, Shawn raised his fingers to his temples, shaking his head. "The connection has been broken. I'm sorry there's no point in trying again tonight." Shawn stammered out his excuse, counting on Gus to do the rest and usher their clients out of the office while he tried to catch his breath.

The office lights came on overhead and Shawn found a glass of water being pushed into his hands. "What the heck just happened, Shawn?" Gus was kneeling in front of Shawn, his forehead wrinkled with concern, "It looked like you were having some kind of seizure."

Taking the glass from Gus, Shawn shook his head. "It wasn't a seizure, Gus," Shawn stared at his friend, there wasn't a hint of humour visible on his face, "I think I just saw a ghost."

Gus started to laugh but when Shawn didn’t join in and his expression staying the same, his laughter faded into a small whimper. As Shawn continued with his serious stare, Gus’s head snapped back and his eyes getting wide before narrowing in suspicion. "You'd better not be messing with me, Shawn." This wouldn't be the first time Shawn had tried to trick Gus into believing one of his wild stories.

"I'm not __messing__ with you, Gus,” Shawn pulled himself up off the floor and dropped down into one of the recently vacated seats. “It was her, Ayana." He said with a flick to the picture still sitting in the middle of the table. "She appeared out of nowhere, told me to help her, and then she was gone just as fast."

"Shawn, In case you forgot, you’re not really psychic. You can't actually see ghosts. And I know that nobody else saw anything."

Shawn sipped his water with a sigh. "I don't know what to tell you, Buddy. Unless you can think of another reason why I could have seen that vivid of a hallucination."

A frown appeared on Gus's face. His suspicious glare had returned as he stepped closer to his friend. "Are you on drugs, Shawn?"

Shawn tutted at his friend. "Gus, how could you? What sort of petty thief do you think I am? Grand theft auto, maybe. Impersonating a priest, doctor, and law official, definitely. Breaking and entering, we do that once a week."

"Shawn."

"But _ _drugs__? My body’s a temple, Gus. A temple."

Gus would have been more impressed if he hadn't watched Shawn eat an entire chocolate cake on his own the day before. "So then what are you saying? You can really see ghosts now?"

Shawn stared at Ayana's picture as he gave his head a slow shake. "I don't know, Gus. I just know what I saw. And what I saw was a girl in trouble." Setting his now empty glass on the table, Shawn hopped out of his chair. "We need to go to her house. There has to be some kind of clue there to where she went. If we find her, we find our Casper."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Shows up a year late with Starbucks* Sup?

It didn't take long for Gus to clean up the office while Shawn flipped through the missing woman's belongings. At Shawn's request, her family had brought everything they thought could be of importance from her apartment. From body sprays to her wallet, Shawn searched through all of it until he located the address he needed. Moments later, he and Gus were off in Gus' car, but the ride turned out to be less than ideal with both men tense and wondering the same thing. What the hell just happened?

"So," Gus started, "Are we going to talk about this or is this one of those times where we pretend everything's fine when it's clearly not?"

"You know the first choice is always my go to for any awkward conversation, Gus. Especially when I really don't know what's going on."

Gus looked at Shawn with pursed lips and Shawn sighed. It seemed Gus wasn't going to leave things alone, even if he was telling the truth. "Are you psychic now?" He asked, "Or have you really been seeing ghosts this whole time and didn't tell me?"

"No, I haven't been seeing ghosts this whole time. I mean-" Shawn frowned and looked away from his friend.

The hairs on the back of Gus' arms raised as he looked towards Shawn. "You mean what, Shawn? What does 'I mean,' mean?" He imitated Shawn's voice to hide his fear, but the tremor that ran through his words betrayed him.

Beside him, Shawn took a deep breath. "When I was a kid, there were a few times when I would- When I saw things I couldn't explain. My dad never believed me, said I needed to stop watching so many scary movies but, I think I always knew deep down," Shawn fell silent before looking at Gus, "I knew it wasn't my imagination."

The car drove on in a thick silence. Gus' eyes were wide and a quiet whimper escaped him as he considered Shawn's words. Meanwhile, Shawn was doing everything he could to keep from giggling. He quickly failed.

Gus' mouth clicked shut as Shawn's quiet giggles grew louder. He'd been played. "Dang it, Shawn! You know ghost jokes are off-limits."

Shawn continued to chuckle. "I so had you. Unbelievable, man. This was probably a reaction to that four-day old burrito I ate yesterday, not me _communing_ with spirits behind your back."

"Good."

"Or is it?"

"Shawn."

Shawn was spared the rest of Gus' lecture as their destination drove into sight. To their surprise, Ayana's apartment wasn't any ordinary apartment. Tall and clean, it made Shawn's own home seem condemned in comparison. "Her mother said she worked in retail." Shawn said as he and Gus shared a frown and approached the front doors.

"Well she definitely lives here, look," A. Lewis was written neatly on a list of tenant names written out beside their doorbells. "I don't know how you think you're getting in, though." Gus continued, "Look at the security on this door."

"Oh, Gus, my easily deterred friend. Haven't you ever heard that when there's a way there's a way?"

"When there's a will there's a way, Shawn."

"I've heard it both ways. Look at all these names, Gus. You don't think there's at least one person waiting for a pizza right now? It's dinner time. If we really want in, all we have to do is-" Shawn pressed his finger against every doorbell until halfway down, the front door buzzed open. Smirking in triumph, Shawn grabbed the door and lead the way inside.

When they reached the unit number indicated on the tenant list, he stepped aside to let Gus work his magic. As he watched, Gus procured a lock pick kit from seemingly nowhere. A few quick twists of the pick, the door clicked open.

"You have a gift, my friend." Shawn said.

"You know that's right." Gus replied this time being the one to lead the way inside.

They entered, found the light switch, and proceeded to let out two identical high-pitched screams, for Ayana Lewis was in her apartment.

She laid in the middle of her floor. A long needle sticking of her arm, and the discoloration on her face indicated what had been her demise.

"You told me this girl was missing, Shawn! That is a dead body!"

Recovering from his shock, Shawn approached the body and bent down for a closer examination. "Her ghost showing up at the office might have been a hint she's not as alive as I hoped, Gus."

Gus huffed. "It could have been an astral projection, Shawn."

Shawn didn't have to look up to know Gus had turned away from the sight. He timed out when Gus would begin lying to himself and say he wanted to take in the rest of the apartment, instead of being afraid to see another dead body. "Pretty nice place for a junkie." Gus said with a nonchalance that only confirmed Shawn's theory. "She must have been caught in some nasty business to afford a place like this. For all the good it did her. Now her soul is trapped on this plane for eternity to atone for her sins."

"Sins, Gus?"

Gus looked over his shoulder. "She's got a needle in her arm, Shawn. It was probably suicide. You know the pressure these college kids are under."

"I didn't kill myself."

Shawn's head shot up. The voice he heard was the same voice from his office. Ayana's voice. A cold chill spread down Shawn's spine, while Gus remained unaffected. Time seemed to slow. Shawn's gaze fell on the empty space beside Gus. The air seemed to shimmer and shift as if he was looking through a mirage. When it settled again, Ayana Lewis stood beside Gus, transparent and perplexed.

"I didn't kill myself. Why would he say that?"

Shawn stared at the young ghost, frozen in place until Gus' voice shook him back into action.

"Shawn?"

"Gus, don't look now, but Ayana Lewis is standing right beside you."

Gus paled. "Right beside me? You mean there's a g-ghost in the room and its beside me?"

Shawn sighed. "That's the idea, Gus."

Gus swallowed. His eyes held no emotion as he stared at Shawn. "Would you excuse me? For just one little-" Shawn made an indignant noise as Gus raced for the door. The two beings left stared in silence, listening to Gus scream all the way down and out of the building until the sounds turned into the sound of a blue car squealing away.

Shawn pursed his lips at the still swinging door before turning his attention to the transparent woman. The longer Shawn stared, the more details he started to notice. She was dressed just as her body was, but without the needle. It was that detail which caught Shawn's attention and dragged his eyes back to the body. A few seconds of hard concentration gave Shawn all the information he needed "So who did do it?"

Ayana's eyes snapped away from the door to Shawn. "What?"

"Who killed you?"

"Killed me?" The ghost's eyes went wide and a new chill swept through Shawn. Above them, the lights began to flicker. "I was murdered?" Her voice was little more than a whisper and as Shawn watched, she began to fade.

Much to his own surprise, Shawn didn't want her to disappear again. "You said you didn't kill yourself, and if you didn't do it, it was either natural causes or foul play. I don't know about you, but not much about this seems natural." His body was wracked with anxiety, yet it didn't feel like it was his own. Adding another question to Shawn's growing list, Shawn stood. Knowing it wasn't his fear did help Shawn to stay calm, as he spoke to the frightened ghost. His tone worked to keep Ayana from fading any further and the lights to return to normal. "Do you remember what happened?" He asked.

Ayana shook her head. "I just remember waking up in that séance thing and then I was here with my- with my body." She bit her lip, turning away from the sight of her body and crossed her arms. "I don't understand. What happened to me? Why couldn't your friend see me? Why can _you_?"

' _All very good questions_ ,' Shawn thought. His father always told him the movies he watched would never have any real life practical use, yet here he was putting every ghost movie he'd ever seen to real life practical use. "Well clearly you're stuck on this plane because you have some unfinished business. It may or may not be to get revenge on those who did this to you." Shawn thought out his next words carefully before he proceeded to tell unexpectedly true, truth. "I'm a psychic detective. Your family hired me to find you after you disappeared. That's why I can see you and Gus can't." 

Ayana turned back to face him and stared. "A psychic."

"Yes." 

"Ghosts and psychics. What was your friend? A werewolf? Vampire?"

"A pharmaceutical sales rep." 

The ghost gave a small smile before looking down at her still body. "Why would anyone want to kill me?" 

Shawn had no answer to give, but he wouldn't rest until he got all the answers, for himself and for Ayana.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Concrit welcome. See you next year probably


End file.
